Dark clouds

Another wee ear worm for bedtime? Sorry ... It's how I felt after breakfast today. I didn't manage to get through on a phone call I wanted to make; the weather outside was cold and blowy, with rain every so often; I'd done my Italian for the morning. And the thought crossed my mind: Why don't I just get down my new book and sit and read it? What is it about reading for pleasure in the morning? I know that as a child, after the age of 7 or so,  the only reading that I could do in the morning would be for homework, or in the school holidays when I would often engross myself in a book while my pals outside were shouting for me to join them. But now? Do I have to be on a sickie to justify pleasurable reading that isn't work? Even though I've been retired for almost 19 years ...?

And of course, put like that, it's crazy. But I didn't get my book. Instead I rang Di for a blether, then found a whole folder of potentially useful papers, then wasted an hour making scans of some of them that I then had a vague ambition to lay out as a booklet but ...

The weather didn't improve - in fact, the wind became gusty from the west and the showers more intense - but we went out in the afternoon. We left the car in Benmore Gardens car park and walked along the west side of Loch Eck, where we were pretty sheltered from the west wind. There were occasional bright sunny moments when everything looked amazing (there were white horses on Loch Eck) and we met a young couple with a most attractive collie that took a great dislike to Himself's hat (we know this because Po the family collie can't stand it and barks madly) but a liking for moi. Strange. 

On the drive home we found we were chasing a magnificent rainbow over the Holy Loch, but the best drama came from the light as we drove through Sandbank into a livid cloud - and that's the photo I've chosen for today. Blipper Sally  will have to wait for my candlesticks and snuffer ...

I am tired of living in perpetual winter, and I'm tired of the horrors on the news day in, day out. What on earth did people imagine Iran would do  as a result of Israel's attacks on the Iranian consulate in Syria the other week? Dark clouds indeed/